Judy -- love your layout! I hadn't realized you could get a zig zag out of these. I'm definitely going to have to play before I sew any more of the blocks together.

Folks, thanks for the suggestions on how to prevent my machine from eating the points. In using a leader fabric, how much do you overlap it with the quilt block? Since the corners are between 4 - 6 thickness depending on where the seams fell, I'm concerned about adding even more bulk. But I hate to discard blocks due to the machine mangling them.

Brigit-Carol

Belfry, you don't overlap the pieces. You chain piece, meaning just put the next set to sew through the machine without clipping the threads between each one. When you reach the last set, use a scrap piece of fabric (ender, which becomes a leader the next time around) to hold your threads. You'll end up with a clothesline of pieces of fabric hanging.

Kris ~~ this one is so much faster to do ~~ you could have it done and go back to Orca Bay real quick! Don't let me influence you, LOL! I'm saving the photo of the big quilt until later, but here is what I did with the leftovers - I made lots of strings and worms, what can I say!?!

(The purple blocks are on the quilt that hangs behind the design wall, pay no attention to it) The top and bottom rows are the end pieces left on the "worms" when I cut the triangles, of course. This is 62 X 72 and not sure if it needs to be any bigger - mainly because I used up every scrap left from the ones pieces for this project.

One problem I'm having is my machine is eating the points when I first begin to sew.

One trick I used to use when sewing on nylon tricot years ago was use a piece of paper under the start of the seam - sort of like leaders & enders but extending under the fabric a little way. Also, if your needle is dull, that will cause the fabric to "drag" into the faceplate hole.

I like the brightness of your blocks. I actually got some strips sewn (no paper underneath) since I had quite a few strings. Strings to me are under 1 1/2 inches down to 3/4 inch or a little less. Haven't dug around for the plain fabric yet. Might get to that tomorrow. I just needed something easy this afternoon, so started sewing strips. Most of my strips are 11 to 14 inches because fabrics I have been trying to use up in quilts are from some scrap packs I bought over 30 years ago. They averaged around 11" by 13 to 14", so after cutting up what I had left into 2 1/2 inch strips, I had some odd widths. I added other left-over strips from other projects to add a little color and lights. I may also cut up some of the odd 2 1/2 inch strips into narrower strips - various widths to add a little variety in the strips. I am cutting to the 3 1/2" as in Bonnie's directions. I like small blocks for the wheelchair quilts, and I have many strips about 4 inches long. They should work for this.

The top and bottom rows are the end pieces left on the "worms" when I cut the triangles, of course.

Of COURSE! I wondered what to do with them. I thought of leaving an extra 1/4 inch and sewing the 2 ends together to make another block with less waste, but there would be a seam in the background. That wouldn't be all bad since this is using up scraps and the end pieces are scraps! Yours is a perfect idea for using them. Your orange border ties all the bright colors together.

I also have many bonus HST from other quilts which need using up. Maybe I can combine these ends with them and make a scrap quilt from the scraps from scrap quilts (what a confusing sentence!). Ideas, ideas, ideas - they just keep swimmming around in my head. Unfortunately, not enough time to use all of them!

Thank you for leading this project for us. This is just the mindless project I needed when resting between quilting and binding. I even left the walking foot on for sewing the strips together and they didn't seem to slip like narrow widths like to do. I was too lazy to take it off and put it back on later when resuming the quilting and binding.

These blocks do go together very quickly. You don't need to make a lot of blocks to get a great quilt. My Diamond Strings is just 39" square with the borders so it's a wall hanging. I'm really happy I decided to make one!

Great quilt, Carol! I love your borders. They remind me of sailboats in a race! Your layout is great. There is more than one visible pattern to the blocks. I see 5 very large stars with center blocks and I can also see diamonds and bow ties!

Can't wait to see your other quilt!

Carol:

Kris ~~ this one is so much faster to do ~~ you could have it done and go back to Orca Bay real quick! Don't let me influence you, LOL! I'm saving the photo of the big quilt until later, but here is what I did with the leftovers - I made lots of strings and worms, what can I say!?!

(The purple blocks are on the quilt that hangs behind the design wall, pay no attention to it) The top and bottom rows are the end pieces left on the "worms" when I cut the triangles, of course. This is 62 X 72 and not sure if it needs to be any bigger - mainly because I used up every scrap left from the ones pieces for this project.

I've been on vacation with the grandkids at the beach the last 2 weeks. I can't wait to get started on this tonight. It looks like fun. The quilts that have been posted are so pretty. Thanks for starting another scrappy.